Abstract
Howard Hinesley is Assistant Superintendent for Exceptional Student Education in Pinellas County, Florida, a school district of over 90,000 students in the St. Petersburg area. He is past president of the Florida Federation of The Council for Exceptional Children and currently is on the CEC Board of Governors. Dr. Hinesley is also the president of the Florida Coalition for Exceptional Student Education. The purpose of this coalition, made up of 21 parent and professional organizations, is to make sure that appropriated and needed legislation for exceptional students gets passed in Florida. For the last two years Dr. Hinesley has served on the advisory committee for the CEC Policy Options Project (POPS), which attempts to grapple with emerging issues in special education by having people in the field react to these issues and to a variety of related policy options.
The minimum competency movement is primarily a grassroots movement that arose from citizen and parent groups seeking accountability from public schools. Public attention has focused mainly on regular students, and programs were originally conceived and mandated in response to concerns about the skills of nonhandicapped students. Policy about treatment of handicapped students in relation to mandated testing programs differs from state to state. In a recent publication, Minimum Competency Testing Programs and Handicapped Students: Perspectives on Policy and Practice, Ann Rosewater stated, “Within a few years, nearly every state in the nation will have instituted some variation on the basic skills and competencies testing theme. Potentially harmful or helpful consequences for handicapped students so far have been left unexamined. The time for serious consideration of how this sweeping educational change affects handicapped students is overdue” (p. 20). According to Rosewater, “Policymakers must ask two fundamental questions: Should minimum competency programs mandated for nonhandicapped students also apply to handicapped students? If so, how can they be implemented consistent with the requirements of Public Law 94-142 and Section 504 .” (p. 14) which guarantee the right of handicapped children to participate in all programs and benefits offered their nonhandicapped peers, the individualization of the educational process, and the involvement of handicapped students in programs in the mainstream of our public educational system?
To date, no satisfactory solutions have emerged in answer to these questions although a number of states do have prescribed policies for the minimum competency testing of handicapped children (NASDSE, 1979). The state of the art is still very much on the drawing board and exploration is still in order. This conversation with Howard Hinesley explores the latest developments related to the testing effort in Florida, which was one of the first states to mandate a minimum competency testing program.
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